Business Development Manager, Partnerships (Bókun) New London, UK

About Tripadvisor

The Tripadvisor Group connects people to experiences worth sharing, and aims to be the world’s most trusted source for travel and experiences. We leverage our brands, technology, and capabilities to connect our global audience with partners through rich content, travel guidance, and two-sided marketplaces for experiences, accommodations, restaurants, and other travel categories. The subsidiaries of Tripadvisor, Inc. (Nasdaq: TRIP), include a portfolio of travel brands and businesses, including Tripadvisor, Viator, and TheFork.

Bókun, a fast-growing subsidiary of Tripadvisor Inc., is a leading reservation system and channel management platform for tours and activities operators globally that enables them to streamline their back-end operations and connect to an ecosystem of online travel agents to grow their business. At Bókun, we are committed to delivering innovative solutions that empower our clients to grow their businesses and enhance customer experiences. As a key player in travel technology, Bókun combines the agility of a startup with the stability of a publicly traded organisation.

About the role

We’re growing our Partnerships team and looking for a driven, closer-first Business Development Manager to join our existing partnerships team. This is a sales role first. You’ll build relationships and close commercial agreements with partners across Bókun’s full partnerships portfolio — rather than owning one narrow programme. You’ll be equally comfortable pitching and negotiating with a founder running a five-person tour operator and a director at an enterprise OTA, and confident owning a deal from first conversation through to signed contract. Because we’re a small, high-ownership team, you’ll move fluidly across partnership types as priorities shift, and you’ll have real input into how our wider commercial approach and partnerships process evolve — not just execute against what already exists.

Key Responsibilities

• New business & deal-closing: Build and run your own pipeline of prospective partners across Bókun’s partnership types, from first outreach through negotiation to signed contract. Lead meetings and negotiations with partners and stakeholders at every seniority level — from founders to enterprise decision-makers — and close agreements that drive measurable value for Bókun.
• Relationship growth (once a deal is signed): Maintain and grow the commercial relationships you build, ensuring partners stay engaged and continue to deliver value for Bókun. Track and report your pipeline and closed business against clear sales targets.
• Cross-partnership & infrastructure: Flex across all partnership types as priorities shift — this is not a single-programme role. Contribute to improving our commercial templates, negotiation playbook and partnerships process more broadly.

Qualifications

• At least 5 years of business development / sales experience, ideally in SaaS, marketplaces, or travel technology — a proven track record of sourcing and closing your own deals, not just managing existing ones.
• Confident and polished presenting, pitching and negotiating with stakeholders at every seniority level, from founders to C‑suite/director‑level executives.
• Strong contract negotiation skills — comfortable owning commercial terms through to signature.
• A genuine hunter: motivated by building pipeline and closing, not solely by managing what’s already signed.
• Excellent interpersonal, communication and negotiation skills, with near‑native business English.
• Nice to have: experience in the tours & activities / experiences industry.
• Nice to have: understanding of how two‑sided marketplaces work (balancing supply and demand sides) — deep reseller‑programme or API/connectivity knowledge is not required and can be learned on the job.
• Comfortable working in a small, fast‑moving team where priorities shift and you’ll be asked to cover ground outside your core remit.
• Other European languages are a plus.
• A strategic thinker with strong analytical and problem‑solving capabilities; self‑motivated and able to work independently in a fast‑paced environment.
• Demonstrated ability to use AI tools to improve efficiency, quality, and decision‑making in day‑to‑day work.
• Proven ability to operate effectively with a global‑first mindset.

What We Offer

• Competitive compensation packages (routinely benchmarked against the latest industry data), including base salary and annual bonuses.
• “Work your way” with flexibility to suit your lifestyle. Tripadvisor Group takes a remote‑friendly approach to collaboration across a worldwide team, with the option to join on‑site as often as you’d like or as required by your team.
• Flexible schedule. Work‑life balance is ingrained in our culture by design. Trust and accountability make it work.
• Donation matching. Give back? Give more! We match qualifying charitable donations annually.
• Tuition assistance. Want to level up your career? We love to hear it! Receive annual support for qualified programs.
• Lifestyle benefit. An annual benefit to spend on yourself. Use it on travel, wellness, or whatever suits you.
• Travel perks. We believe that travel is employee development, so we provide discounts and more.
• Employee assistance program. We’re here for you with resources and programs to help you through life’s challenges.
• Health benefits. We offer great coverage and competitive premiums.
• Generous referral scheme. Help us grow and be rewarded with generous awards for referring successful candidates.

We exist to create value for our customer, the traveler. We enable our suppliers and partners to unlock this value. Their collective behaviours and insights are what drives us. Execution is our edge. We act fast, experiment, learn from failure, iterate, and improve the solutions of tomorrow across every aspect of our business. Our execution is agile, data‑driven, prioritised, and built to scale. We assume no problem is someone else’s problem and finish what can be done today, knowing tomorrow will bring fresh challenges.

We succeed together. The best outcomes are driven by empathic, humble, and diverse subject matter experts working toward shared goals. We collaborate relentlessly, challenge assumptions, give actionable feedback, and set each other up for success through empowered teams with a clear charter. We transparently take ownership of our growth, individually and as a team. We celebrate the quality of our effort, our learnings, and our collective achievements.

We strive to create an accessible and inclusive experience for all candidates. If you need a reasonable accommodation during the application or the recruiting process, please make sure to reach out to your individual recruiter or our team at AccessibleRecruiting@tripadvisor.com. If you have any additional questions about careers at Tripadvisor you can email us at recruitment@tripadvisor.com. We have all the answers!